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Sure, it was exciting to win the Avery and Tremaine, and not just because it looked good on a resume or because it came with some cash that put the wolf a little farther away from the door, though both of those were good. Especially the latter.
Despite all that, Spammer wished the free trip to the AMA convention would have meant some city he hadn’t gone to before, but he shut up and didn’t tell people that I’ve been to Los Angeles already, thanks.
Especially as the convention center was right across from the Staples Center - wow, Spammer wasn’t going to see anything new this trip unless he left the conference.
Michel shook his head when Spammer said that, but what came out of his mouth was a surprise.
“You’re supposed to do that, old son,” he said. “No one expects you to be at the convention every hour of the day.”
Spammer looked at him - “But - the scholarship,” he said, “it’s paying my way -”
“Right, not saying you’ll get off the plane and spend the whole time at the beach,” Michel said. “But they have sign-ups for tours, don’t they? Brochures, and such? That’s because they expect you to breathe a little.”
Considering the cost of things like this, Spammer was of the mindset that when you attended a conference, you arrived, you went to meetings, you networked (a word that made him shudder like no one’s business), and you went home. Having the event paid for (including transportation and lodging, eh) made that an even more concrete idea.
And yet, here he was, on a bus he’d picked on a whim, because it said it was going to Sunset Boulevard. He had no idea what the route would be like but he figured Sunset had to be okay, so why not, eh?
He’d set out for a walk in the early morning, thinking he ought to look up Al-Anon meetings because he was feeling a little at sea. He found a diner called the Pantry for breakfast that had been on one of the “While you’re in downtown Los Angeles” brochures, and ended up carbo-loading on pancakes.
"After I get the pancakes, I always need a walk just to stay awake," said the guy next to him, and Spammer nodded, polite. And then when he saw the pancakes the guy laughed.
"Okay, you win," Spammer said, looking at the very large plate with the large stack of - okay yeah, a walk would be good after that. If he was going to skip the conference for the day, it wouldn’t be to nap, so he left more of it on the plate than he planned, because if he was going to skip the conference it wasn't going to be for a fucking walk, either.
This was when he realized he’d made a decision. Spammer had already been to two of the three sessions he had circled as being priorities, the day’s keynote was about new trends in American insurance coverage, and after the carb-heavy meal, neither the three blocks to the hotel (north) or to the conference center (south) were a far-enough walk. Only problem was, he wanted to leave the area but he didn't have a destination in mind, and downtown Los Angeles doesn't exactly go out of its way to make you want to be there.
Spammer found himself roped into a walking tour because the foursome on the tour begged him to, because the rest of their party flaked and the tour guide said five minimum, no matter what, even if paid in advance.
And that's how Spammer found out more about the old movie houses in Los Angeles than he'd ever really wanted to know, but nice day, right? With nice people who didn't joke too much about how nice Canadians were, and it made him wonder what Toronto was like back then. He thought Billy might be interested in this, too. He liked history.
Spammer checked his watch. Not bad. It had been at least two hours since he'd admitted to thinking about Billy. Almost a record, eh.
At the end of the tour he said goodbye to his temporary friends, and saw that he was near a bus stop - actually he was near a lot of bus stops, but no map of them or anything, no way to tell where anything was going if you didn't know the names of places.
Sunset! There was a bus that said Sunset! He knew that street, or at least he thought he did, so when the bus pulled over, Spammer waited for everyone to get on, and then he boarded. It wasn’t too crowded, so he had time to get out the fare and ask the driver how far down Sunset he was going.
“All the way to the ocean, my man,” the driver said with a smile. “You from out of town?”
“Toronto.”
“Welcome to the best city in the world! You ever been here before?”
“Couple times,” Spammer admitted.
“Well, shoot, I’ll stop trying to sell you on it, then,” the driver said, and Spammer laughed.
“I’ve been here before, but I’ve only been to the airport and downtown, really.”
The driver nodded.
“This is a good route to go on, then. Sunset goes through a lot of neighborhoods, poor ones, first, then rich ones. You see something you want to see, you can hop off and catch the next one, or cross the street and go back downtown. You want to see Hollywood?”
“Sure,” Spammer said, a little bit of maybe? in his voice.
“I’ll tell you where to get off if that sounds good. It doesn’t look like the movies, though.”
Spammer laughed again, less about a joke and more about feeling relaxed, and the driver slowed down for another stop, so Spammer went and sat down.
He didn’t get out in Hollywood, though he recognized a the name of a club Oz had taken the Lames to once. It wasn’t because the place looked so sleazy in the daylight (it did, but come on: Toronto had great clubs in some pretty bad areas, Spammer wasn’t an idiot), but because of the bleach-blond guy out front, talking on his phone and looking around like he was waiting for someone. He looked like he belonged in the club, and he looked like a younger version of Billy. Son of Billy, almost, he could just about hear Ozzer say in his head.
That is, if he ever told Ozzer about Billy.
Which, on the face of it, sounded like a dumb thing to do. Yeah, Ozzer, hi - I think I have a crush on this guy, he could hear himself saying to Ozzer, except he really couldn’t hear himself say that, because he wasn't in high school.
...Except he could totally hear Oz saying, you, uh, you think you have a crush?
Meanwhile, the bus had left Hollywood though it hadn’t entered a nicer part of town, just one without as many t-shirt shops. In Spammer’s mind, Ozzer still stared at him until he agreed, that the thing he needed to say was I have a crush on a guy named Billy.
This wasn’t the time for realizations, not while he was sightseeing. Spammer nodded to himself, liking that as a rule. Nope, stick to the here and now, a junky old bus that the driver was proud of in a city with cardboard cutouts of celebrities you could pay ten dollars to have your picture taken with. And again, the Ozzer in his head spoke up, asking Spammer if there was a special time and place for this sort of thought, and Spammer thought that for a guy who didn’t say much, Oz sure didn’t shut up much.
He boycotted his own head for a while, staring at the city that didn’t look much different from the cities he knew better, seemed like the same doughnut shops and printers, only difference was the palm trees, which he remember Ozzer saying weren’t native to the area. And he remembered Dune, a sci-fi book Gray liked that Spammer read one tour because he'd forgot to bring something of his own. After that, every time Spammer was in Los Angeles he remembered the bit in the book about how a palm tree needed as much water as a man, so planting them was big fuck you in a place where water was scarce.
Not quite the worry for a Torontonian, Billy said in his head and okay, that did it, Spammer thought, it was time to stop thinking. He pulled the cord and rang the bell, and the driver pulled over at the next stop.
“It’s a nicer looking area than Hollywood, but keep an eye on your wallet,” the driver said.
“Thanks,” Spammer said. “I just need to walk for a bit, stretch my legs.”
The driver nodded, looked across the street before looking back at Spammer. From the stairwell, Spammer couldn't see what the driver was looking at.
“Like I say, there’s always a bus coming,” driver said, and it was a warning, clear as day, and once he got out and let the bus drive on, Spammer looked over at where he thought the bus driver had been looking. All he saw was a hotel and a club. It was the sort of club that looked a lot nicer in the day than the Hollywood place, and the bleach blond outside looked more like a model than a real guy.
Keeping up the theme of more, the hotel was the sort that cost more than Spammer made in a month just to stay a night, and you didn’t need to be Carl Spanek’s son to be suspicious of the whether you were getting your money’s worth. The club, too, had a look that said ten dollars for a club soda is a good deal, considering how much you’ll start to spend on drinks if you actually start drinking.
The glare of the sun and the shadows made the name of the club hard to read, but maybe it was DELUXE? He could only make out a few of the letters. And again, Ozzer was in his head, but this time Spammer agreed: the minute you named something DELUXE, it was guaranteed not to be.
But the driver... he’d become stone-faced while looking at it, a disapproval, it seemed, masked as neutrality. Get out. It wasn’t a statement on aesthetics and fashion.
The bleach-blond model approached a cab that pulled up, and an equally chiseled model got out, her hair a little darker than his. They kissed on the cheek and went into the hotel lobby, a doorman greeting them.
Models, eh.
Spammer thought back on that time the Globe and Mail did an article on Men's Team Canada, third year of the reboot and the team was doing great, Coach finally getting some respect, and then some asshole had this idea of a photo shoot. Turned out okay and all, kinda funny - Coach and Ozzer were in Team Canada uniforms looking over at the next page where the team was all wearing designer clothing, and then you turned the page and there was Thierry in his size thirteens and an evening gown he could have worn to the Juno Awards.
It was both funny and boring as hell to shoot. Best word for it was bizarre, the way it seemed to be about standing around until they needed you, like you were living mannequins, with people arguing about scarves and ties, draping them across his shoulder -
“Sweet Jesus, you’re right, that makes him look hideous,” this one man said, coming up and staring at Spammer like he seriously was a mannequin. No thought to saying anything to Spammer himself, and he didn't even turn and talk to the other person, like you do when there's three of you in the conversation - because there weren't three, there was only two, and every single man on Team Canada was just a breathing dummy. Spammer figured that out long after that moment.
“Lose the gun metal and warm him up. Let’s move on to the aubergine,” the man had said, and turned his attention to Frank, who’d rolled his eyes while Spammer was taken over to a rack of suits and told to strip down. This had gone on for a few hours and then they were told to come back in the morning. The next day they’d all been given two or three suits, but the Lames had five suits each, three of which they wore on the ice.
Thierry had loved every minute of it.
"Well, sure," Ozzer said, "they talked to Thierry."
"So you know, Oz," Ank had said at the bar that night (they'd all needed a bar that night, even Thierry, because man had they spent time on him!), "we know it's not about gay guys -"
"I know there's a but coming," Ozzer said to Spammer and Gray, "but I'm still going to make a blanket statement right now that I'm going to agree with whatever Anchor says next."
"But Jesus Fucking Christ those gay guys were pissing me off," Anchor said, and Ozzer bought the next round because fucking A, eh.
Spammer smiled and shook his head at the memory.
Thierry would have seen the name and figured the club was seriously DELUXE, if that’s what they’d named it. Whereas Billy...
Spammer got a wild hair and texted him. He’d already texted him today about taking a break from the convention. Billy’s response had managed to disparage the AMA without letting his boot up from Health Canada’s throat.
THINKING OF GOING INTO A BAR CALLED DELUXE
The answer came quickly.
IF IT’S DOWNTOWN, IT MOST LIKELY HAS TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF DRINKS. WESTSIDE, IT’LL BE THE QUALITY AND PRICE OF THE DESIGNER DRUGS IN THE LOO.
The entrance to DELUXE - no, sorry, it's not DELUXE, it's LUX. Goes to show what assumptions do to a head. Anyway, the entrance to LUX was a small lobby with black leather and red velvet, leading to an elevator and a stairway, both with the red and black.
At the bottom of the stairs, lights reflected off shiny black tiles. Spammer heard piano music and wondered if all musicians practiced in the afternoon.
“Oh, hello,” said the pianist, smiling at Spammer. “Can I get you a drink?”
His voice reminded Spammer of Billy’s secret accent, the softer one he used when he didn’t realize anyone could hear him. Except this guy’s was about fifty times richer.
“You’re the bartender and the entertainment?” Spammer asked, hoping he didn’t sound like a dick.
“And the dishwasher, if Raoul doesn’t show up,” the man said, getting up and putting out his cigarette. Spammer wasn’t even aware that there were places in Los Angeles where you could smoke inside.
“Mostly I’m the owner,” the man went on as he got up and led Spammer to the bar. “Dispenser of drinks and dreams. Also dishes, if you want some nibbles. Wouldn’t recommend anything more exotic than pretzels unless you’ve got money to burn and time to wait. Raoul’s not the only one not in yet, so we have to send to the hotel kitchen for food.”
He washed his hands and asked Spammer his pleasure, then scowled when Spammer looked at the taps.
“Bloody hell, can’t even offer you a draw, not until the kegs arrive.”
Spammer looked around. “Okay, are you just not trying to tell me you’re closed? Because that’s okay if you are.”
“Lux is never closed,” the man said, “though it’s true, most of the time those who come in are those as have reason to be here, and… tell me,” he said, a new energy that crackled, and he was no longer a piano player or owner, no, now his focus, the very reason for this point in time seemed to be Spammer, and Spammer was suddenly on the glass plate of a microscope, the way the man’s eyes seemed to trap him.
“What is it you truly desire?”
The man asked him a question. Spammer saw his lips move, heard his voice, but that rich sound seemed more to come through Spammer’s heart than through his ears, a command that could not be ignored, and oh god that voice, it was velvet, like Billy’s, like Billy’s but not, not him, not -
“Not you,” Spammer said, surfacing and taking a deep breath, a little surprised to find he wasn’t soaking wet.
Though he was about to be in pure embarrassment, his face heating as he heard what had come out of his mouth and the man’s reaction to it, which was first surprise, and then incredulity.
“Well, I don’t know as I was on offer, though I’ll admit I’m fond of the barter system, should there be something to trade for,” the man said, and Spammer had some perspective back. He also had the feeling that he could go upstairs to the hotel and get a room with this guy, might not be on the menu but he was at least on tap.
Which you don’t want, Spammer had to remind himself, once more coming up for air. What the hell was going on?
“I’m sorry,” Spammer said, “I - I don’t know, maybe the heat? Outside?” he added. “I - I wasn’t looking to - sorry, it’s your voice,” he said, again thinking of drowning, and he grabbed at the truth like a buoy. “I like it, but it’s reminding me of someone, and -”
“Ah, you want that someone,” the man said, nodding, and smiling, too, which was… a little strange, maybe. “Well, really, I was asking what you’d like to drink, but perhaps I should suggest something. On the house,” he added, reaching for a bottle of scotch, top shelf.
“I insist,” he said, pouring one for himself, too, rocks glasses, not shot glasses, and sipped at the same time as Spammer.
It was a little early for scotch, but Spammer was still dealing with the last thirty seconds.
The man smiled again, a smile that Spammer, if the word didn’t have other associations for him, would have described as “wolfish.”
“Little early for scotch, isn’t it, Lucy?” came a deep voice from the stairs, and Spammer jumped, the sound shocking. He hadn’t heard anything, but the owner didn’t seem surprised. He wondered for a moment how he’d been heard coming down himself, but hey, this was the man’s place, of course he’d hear differences Spammer wouldn’t.
“You know what they say, it’s five o’clock somewhere,” the man answered.
Spammer’s folks had a wall hanging that said that. Spammer’s dad lived by that code, and Spammer put down the scotch and took his hand away.
He looked over to the newcomer, who now stood at the bar about five feet away. Tall and black, wearing some kind of furry vest - who the hell wears fur in Los Angeles, Spammer wondered.
This guy.
“You all right?” he asked Spammer. He wasn’t challenging Spammer, no threat, and he wasn’t… challenging, the way the first man’s question was so penetrating.
“Do you play hockey?” Spammer asked, because seriously, that’s what the guy ought to do.
The man chuckled.
“Not like you did,” he said. “Carl ‘Spammer’ Spanek, Team Canada. Lucy, you’ve got a goon at your bar.”
“Do I? I knew he wasn’t a supermodel or a prizefighter, but outside of that I couldn’t tell. Never did have your faculty for names.”
The new man stared, not even seeming to listen. He held out his hand to Spammer. “Amenadiel,” he said. Spammer took the hand, but had no idea what to do with the word.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that?” he asked.
“It’s a greeting. Call me John.”
The bartender snorted. “John,” he said. “That’s original.”
“Have you tried the Angel City ale?” John asked. “Probably more your speed than the Glenkinchie.”
“Probably,” Spammer said. “Sorry,” he said to the first man - wait, did John say his name was Lucy?
“All right, brother, no need for a sermon,” the owner said, and opened a refrigerator to pull out a bottle, placing it in front of Spammer. He gave a speaking look to John.
“It’s a twist-off, and if I understand my brother correctly, you’re strong enough to open it on your own.”
“You two are brothers?” Spammer said, and then felt the blood rise to his face, probably sounded stupid, eh. Not the first time he’s seen interracial adoption but here he was in Los Angeles, always ten years ahead of Toronto, and maybe he sounded like a bumpkin to even ask it.
“No wonder he calls you Lucy,” he added, hoping to take the sting off it.
“I call him Lucy because it’s his name,” John said, and his grin looked less about placating the out-of-towner past an insensitive moment and more like a long-standing routine.
“It is, at best, a shortening of my name,” “Lucy” said, and stuck his hand out to Spammer. “Lucifer Morningstar,” he said.
“Goddamn,” Spammer said, and Lucifer’s response was to laugh and squeeze a little tighter while John’s was to give a soft hey now, a rebuke.
“And I thought Carl was bad,” he added, and only then realized that maybe Lucifer liked his name. He certainly had the attitude to carry off being a Lucifer, what with the sense of glee that seemed to be his permanent undercurrent, and the face and figure of a man who encouraged temptation (and a bartender wouldn’t pour top-shelf scotch for free, even if an owner might - but a hedonist would, every time), not to mention asking Spammer what he -
Oh God.
What he wanted.
“Carl’s not a name for everyone, I’ll grant you,” Lucifer was saying, “but it’s rarely seen as horrific, surely?”
Spammer felt as if he’d been submerged in his thoughts only to come back out dry, as if no one had noticed a thing.
“If I remember right,” John said, tapping the bar, “Spammer is Carl Spanek, Junior.”
“Oh, well that does make sense, doesn’t it,” Lucifer said, smiling. “We’re kindred spirits, you and I, proud members of the ‘Dad’s a Right Bastard’ club.”
This was because he’d left the conference, Spammer thought as John and Lucifer started arguing about their father, and about how you shouldn’t assume people hate their parents (and Spammer had to agree with Lucifer, who was saying that that was a fine argument to be brought up by the very individual who’d brought up Spammer’s name).
Spammer had left the conference, got on a bus almost at random - except he had at least heard about Sunset Boulevard, as opposed to the other bus routes, Cudahy, Crenshaw, Downey - and he got off at a stop where the bus driver stared at the hotel and bar - which was, perhaps, not as much an unconscious act on the driver’s part as it was a way to herd Spammer here.
Jesus, he was as big a patsy as Gray - bigger, eh, couldn’t even pretend to have the benefit of a real bumpkin upbringing.
“Spammer?”
“Carl?”
God, that British accent - not the same as Billy’s but close enough to use the same sounds for Spammer’s name -
Spammer stood up, surprised to realize he could do so without trouble. He felt drugged, mentally, but a quick breath in and out and he didn't think there was any problem physically.
John and Lucifer were staring at him, concerned.
It’s possible Spammer was overthinking this.
“Why don’t you have an accent?” he asked John. “Unless you were adopted as an adult you should have similar accents.”
“Why aren’t you asking him that?” John asked. “You think every time there’s an interracial adoption it’s the black kid getting adopted by the white family and not the other way around?”
“Statistically speaking, yes,” Spammer said. “Don’t pull the are you a racist card on me, asshole - you know too much about me to pretend I’m not smart enough to not know my shit.”
“He has you there, brother,” Lucifer said, and Spammer was not going to think about Billy talking, the accent like warm toffee poured over it all. Lucifer had a more posh accent, like it was the expensive toffee.
“And why did you ask me what I wanted?” Spammer said to him, determined to be ruthless.
Lucifer stared at him, and it had to be something they taught kids in England, the look of I don’t wear glasses but I’ll pretend to just so I have something to look over when I look up to look down at you, maybe an exercise they had to do every day until it became second nature.
Ozzer, still in Spammer’s head, noted that Spammer seemed a little over-involved in thinking about how much looking British people did.
"I suppose you want the reason that has nothing to do with the fact that you are a man who walked into a bar prepared to buy a libation,” Lucifer was saying out in the real world (the real world being a place where the Devil owns a bar), and he gave Spammer a brief martyred look before talking again.
“It’s what I do. I ask people their desires. I don’t, contrary to popular opinion, tempt them, nor do I automatically tell them to act on their desires. Honestly, why does no one believe me?”
“Because you’re the Father of Lies,” Spammer said. The bar was nowhere near the stairs and there were tables and chairs in the way. Spammer had nothing in the way of protection, not even holy water and he was so fucked. Might as well go out on a high note, eh.
“It’s pretty fatuous to say you don’t tempt people. You know you’re seriously good looking, and you know people are attracted to pretty people who look into their eyes.”
“I ask what they desire,” Lucifer said again. “Have you ever done that? I bet you have. A man your size, people might suppose you’re ordering them to take action. Does that make you Mussolini?”
“Lucy, forest for the trees,” John said, not taking his eyes off Spammer.
“Oh, I see it,” Lucifer said. “But I am always curious as to when humans might notice how far out the limb they’ve gone.”
“I noticed a few minutes ago,” Spammer said. “Looking back, I have to assume the bus driver is one of yours. Do you have a demon working at the Pantry? It took a while for them to get a check to me, could have delayed me from getting on a different bus.”
“He doesn’t have human operatives,” John said.
“No, I leave that to your side,” Lucifer said, interrupting with - what was it Ozzer called it? A refrain, that was it, a phrase that came up in automatic response. “So when Paul sings ‘She loves you,’ John sings ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ozzer had said. “That’s a refrain.”
John, meanwhile, sighed and closed his eyes. “There aren’t sides, brother.”
Spammer might actually be able to get out of this one, considering on how easily the two of them would fall into old fights - hold on.
“So you’re an angel,” he said to John.
“We both are,” Lucifer said. He even whined in a pretty way.
“John the angel,” Spammer said, keeping his eyes on John, even if he couldn’t help noticing Lucifer the entire time.
“Amenadiel, like I said before. But the only name of importance is Father’s,” John said. He was a true believer, but there was no arguing he cared about Lucifer. Maybe it was how all angels were, eh. That would jibe with the popular ideas, but not with the literature. Spammer decided he was in no less danger than he’d figured before.
“Yes, and names are so important to Him he’s got seventy-two of the buggers,” Lucifer said. “Are you going to drink that?”
Wait, what?
“So the Bible is right?” Spammer asked. Man, he did not see that coming. Good thing he’d already decided he wasn’t telling Billy about this, because that would just give him the upper hand.
“No, a small band of Hebrews discovered something they shouldn’t have seen,” Lucifer said. “Bit like saying that because matches exist, the Los Angeles Municipal Fire Code is holy writ.”
“You’re an unusual young man, Spammer.”
Spammer looked at John, then finished his beer. The moment called for something Oz-like translated into goon.
“I’m either going to die in a minute, or not,” he said. “And before you try to tell me to not worry,” he added, raising his hand as John started to speak, “there’s no reason I should believe what you say. Further, your opinion of me means jack. But I have to assume you’ve chosen this incredibly random time and place to tell me something. So either kill me or talk.”
He then ruined his moment by trying to finish the beer he’d already finished.
“Would you like another?” Lucifer asked. His courtesy was less ultimate evil and more bartender. Cowed bartender, to be honest.
“This isn’t a cataclysmic moment, Spammer,” John said.
“Quite a rando, as far as moments go, actually,” Lucifer added. He filled a glass with soda water and added a lime, pushing it at Spammer.
“So why am I here?”
John - or Amenadiel? Fuck it, Spammer thought - started to say it really was just happenstance, but then he caught himself.
“As far as I know, it’s because you came in for a drink. If you have another reason, or if Father has sent you here for reasons not told to the Host, I couldn’t say.”
“And now you understand why I quit my last job,” Lucifer said. “Between the paperwork and the blame for all of humanity’s weaknesses was the incessant machinations of someone who didn’t get enough attention as a boy and thus must -”
“Lucifer!”
“You quit your job?” Spammer asked. He had a feeling John - fine, Amenadiel - yelled at Lucifer a lot, so interrupting wasn’t going to change that dynamic.
“I put up a sign, left, and managed to get some real estate in Southern California that didn’t require me selling what angelic matter would translate in human terms as a soul, and now I do what I bloody well desire.”
“And you?” Spammer asked Amenadiel after a moment, because - well, what are you supposed to say, right? There wasn’t a chance in hell (so to speak) that Spammer was able to take on the ultimate evil - though was it right to drink with him? He decided at that moment to make sure he paid for the scotch and the beer.
“He’s trying to get me to go back,” Lucifer said. “At this moment, though, you are here, and my brother is scrupulous about not truly fighting in front of people. It’s one of his more charming attributes. Certainly wish more of the denizens of Earth thought along those lines.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Amenadiel said. “So the last time I looked up the Lame Line, you were in Toronto studying to be a doctor.”
“And now I’m a doctor. Why were you looking me up?”
Amenadiel smiled. “Nothing work-related, I assure you. I just happen to be a fan.”
“Of Team Canada.”
“Of hockey. I caught the Mile High Ice about ten years ago, I think, and that’s when I started following Team Canada. Professionally speaking, Mark Smithbauer is a success story.”
“He’s a good coach,” Spammer said.
“Actually I believe Amenadiel was speaking professionally in terms of confession and redemption,” Lucifer said.
“How do you even know who Mark Smithbauer is?” Amenadiel said.
“I’m quite aware of those who seek fame only to find out there’s a cost,” Lucifer said, “as well as the organized crime figures who are happy to make loans against that cost. Professional athletes have been on my radar since the days of the Roman Coliseum.”
“Don’t you fucking talk -”
“Easy, Spammer,” Amenadiel said, his hand on Spammer’s arm, a gentle squeeze that was just a gentle squeeze. Just a human hand on his arm, and yet there was a peace in it, a peace that he could practically see, golden white glow around where Amenadiel touched him, and Spammer was transfixed.
“Will you let me?” Amenadiel asked.
Let you? Let you what? Spammer wondered.
He nodded tightly, and the glow spread up his arm and entered his chest, glowing more fiercely over his heart even as it expanded to cover all of him. His shoulders relaxed, as did the rest of him. The heart glow remained even as the rest returned to his arm, and back into Amenadiel.
“Lucifer had it right, what he said about your coach. But he also had it right that Mark Smithbauer’s spiritual journey was a joyful triumph in the heavenly realms.”
The glow remained. Amenadiel smiled, wistful, and put his hand over Spammer’s heart, taking the rest of the glow back. Spammer took in a deep breath and let it out.
“So was that my sins being forgiven?” he asked.
“Not needed. Forgiveness is granted to all who seek it, and grace is granted to all without stint. Self-forgiveness, though…” Amenadiel shook his head. “That’s way above my pay grade.”
“Now you sound like my Al-Anon sponsor.”
“See? That’s seeking.”
Spammer grinned, shaking his head. “Now you really sound like him.”
“I’d say tell him hi for me, but he’d try to get you committed.”
“Oh, hell yeah,” Spammer said.
“Don’t bring hell into it,” Lucifer said. Sliding doors opened on the wall across from the stairs: a service elevator, by the look of the guy with the kegs, and Lucifer went to deal with them.
“So, can I ask you something?” Spammer said.
“Free will,” Amenadiel said.
“Beg pardon?”
“You were going to ask why I don’t just force him back to Hell?”
“Okay, that was creepy,” Spammer said.
“Our Father has given him free will,” Amenadiel said. “I don’t know why - it wasn’t granted to the Host, but it was to him. So while I can argue and fight and torment and cajole, I cannot force Lucifer to resume his throne.”
“But he’s loose on Earth! Evil incarnate!” Spammer said.
“No,” Amenadiel said with conviction, or more like determination, as if walking through a minefield as he chose his words, “He’s not evil. Lucifer is telling the truth that he is not forcing people towards evil acts.”
And Amenadiel wasn’t telling the whole truth himself, Spammer saw, as he watched the man (um, angel) finish his beer.
“But he’s not exactly being a monk, is he.”
Amenadiel, staring at his own reflection in the bar, smiled, shaking his head as he blew out a laugh.
“No, he is not.”
“Well, that’s all taken care of,” Lucifer said, coming back to the bar. He tilted his head.
“I’m going to put some disparate facts together and come up with a deduction,” he said, and Spammer finished his soda water, not wanting to consider how he was close to getting hard just hearing the man say that.
“There’s a pharmaceutical company having a party here later,” Lucifer went on, and seriously, pharmaceutical was not a word that got Spammer off normally, but the ess sound followed by a consonantal y, pharmasyutical - it was more of that melted caramel, “and the hotel is sending a limo downtown to pick up some of the bigwigs. I can if you like, send you back in that, or if you’re staying for the party, I can recommend some selections from the restaurant upstairs that you might wish to consider. I’ll tell them to put our bill on Merck’s tab, they’ll never know.”
“Lucy -”
“Oh for Dad’s sake, considering how they spend most of their money that’s positively angelic.”
“Wait - how - oh,” Spammer said. Doctor, Toronto, and an AMA convention in town. “Well done, eh.”
“I prefer rare, myself, but I wouldn’t take away your choices. That’s his lot,” Lucifer said, a mock glare at his brother.
“He doesn’t want you, Lucy.”
“Oh, I know, he already told me that. Though, tell me, Doctor Spanek - and I ask out of pure curiosity - who is it you do actually desire?”
Spammer heard Amenadiel’s hissed “Lucy!” but he stared at Lucifer, the same look as before but it went deeper this time, or maybe Spammer’s thoughts were closer to the surface -
“Billy,” he heard himself say, and it was true, he did, he wanted Billy, who was on the other side of the continent, reading a book if he wasn’t disdaining someone’s reading selection while ringing it up, Billy, who was a text away and out of his reach but not, because that was obvious, he could have him if he’d just -
“We’re here,” the driver said.
Spammer came to, mesmerized by the way the man had cut through the traffic of the Los Angeles freeway, now back at the Hilton six long blocks to the convention center.
“Sorry, I guess I sort of dozed off,” he said. The driver smiled. He looked familiar -
“Do I know you?” Spammer had taken the bus up Sunset, and he’d stopped for a drink at a bar. He was sitting next to the familiar man in a really sweet black Corvette.
The man smiled. “My name’s John. I think you underestimated your jet lag, so my brother asked me to drive you home.”
“Right,” Spammer said, remembering talking to the bartender and his brother, both good looking guys because hello, Los Angeles, eh. John was black and - damn, that jet lag had been brutal, he’d managed to drag through yesterday and tomorrow he had his presentation… John’s brother was white -
“Damn,” he said, and John winced. “Sorry, eh.”
“Hey, hockey players swear, even if I don’t,” John said. He took out the napkin Spammer had signed. “This is the thing I’m gonna remember.”
“Skate on,” Spammer said, and John repeated it, and Spammer got out and went up to his room, and fell asleep pretty fast, didn’t wake up until about five, which gave him time to have a good workout before heading over to the convention center and deliver his presentation.
“Good trip?” Billy asked, picking him up at Pearson. “Didn’t hear from you most of it, so I’m assuming you actually enjoyed it.”
“It was a convention,” Spammer said, “fifty percent good, ninety percent bullshit.”
“About average, then. See much of the city?”
“Not really. But it’s Los Angeles, right? Probably didn’t miss anything.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Billy said, and pulled into traffic. “How was Deluxe?”
Spammer needed a moment to remember - was that the name?
“It was okay,” he said. “It was spendy. I had a beer and talked hockey with this guy, turned out a drug company was hosting a party at the hotel by the bar, so we got dinner there.” And his brother came too, right? Wait, were they both doctors?
Something seemed strange about that, but not bad, and - and -
Well, whatever it was, it was gone. Spammer stretched, glad to be out of an airplane seat. It was nice of Billy to pick him up in his Jeep.
“Well, well, look at you, getting out of your comfort zone,” Billy said, and Spammer was happy to be home.